


In The Balance

by breathtaken



Category: Deutschland 83
Genre: Gen, HIV/AIDS, Season/Series 02 Compliant, Season/Series 02 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 12:45:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17060027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathtaken/pseuds/breathtaken
Summary: The first time someone asks Alex if he’s applied to read his Stasi file, he laughs.The next time, he doesn’t.





	In The Balance

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for all of Series 2, but if you've only seen the first series, this fic should still be fairly easy to follow.
> 
> This isn't how I expect things to go in Series 3, but the current canon isn't letting me go any time soon.
> 
> Thank you to [ShadowValkyrie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowvalkyrie) and [sprosslee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sprosslee) for supporting, cheerleading and helping make this story (I hope) sufficiently German. All remaining errors are mine alone.

****The first time someone asks Alex if he’s applied to read his Stasi file, he laughs.

It’s meant as a joke, and he takes it that way; his flat is loud and bright with people, he’s pleasantly buzzed from the alcohol, Marcus is kissing his neck as Johann and Katya open the window to smoke, heedless of the icy air, the lights of new prosperity spread out below.

He’d never even _been_ to the GDR until he and Marcus moved into a technically-still-illegal sublet in that ridiculous apartment in Mitte, among the first “foreigners” willing to pay valuable D-marks for the dubious privilege. Fourth floor, brown coal furnace, draughty windows and the smell of burnt plastic permeating throughout, and waking five times a night to the sound of wailing sirens from the Charité.

They were young, loud and stupid, treading heavily on ground they didn’t understand, drinking Rotkäppchen to be trendy and fucking loud enough to scandalise the neighbours; and they were grieving too, grieving for Jürgen and Walter and Peter and Omer and Matthias and the other Walter and names and even faces forgotten –

– and for Tobias.

Tobias, whom Alex owed so much. Who made him a man. Who had found him again in Berlin and stood by his side as they fought for justice; who never lived to see his country reunited.

And sometimes when he wakes in the night, his loss feels like the sound of sirens.

West Berlin was a thrill then, like living in a dammed-in whirlpool – Isherwood updated for the punk era – and while the residents of that manic, draftless1 enclave could not see the future they knew in their hearts that one day Berlin would be Berlin again, the two halves pulling together like magnets and becoming whole, throwing off all that was ailing it to be theirs, fully, for the seizing.

Those of them who were left, anyway.

He shakes his head, pushing his maudlin thoughts away; he’s got a freshly-opened beer at his elbow, Karl’s putting _Wind of Change_ on the tape deck, and he quickly forgets.

The next time someone asks, he’s an assistant doctor eyeing up the new Max Planck Institute that’s promising to open at the Humboldt University next year. AZT’s image as the magic bullet against AIDS is starting to tarnish2, even though his patients at the clinic are still desperately determined to believe. _Girl I wanna make you sweat_ is permanently on the radio, Marcus has made way for alternately Johann and Willi and sometimes both, and he’s a lot more considerate of his neighbours now that he’s beginning to understand something of what they had to go through.

This time he’s sober, and he doesn’t laugh.

They’re drinking coffee after dinner. The air is close in that late-summer way and the windows thrown wide open, and Willi’s washing up, the clatter of crockery on the draining board suddenly much too loud.

He remembers the woman at the GDR embassy who said nothing when he offered himself up to her, just smiled an inscrutable smile; he remembers Moritz, or whatever the fuck his name was anyway, and inevitably, his father’s face.

Around the table all his friends are silent, for possibly the first time in their respective lives, and he wonders what his expression’s given away.

He makes himself scoff. “Seriously. Why would they care about me?”

This time, he doesn’t forget.

 

* * *

 

There’s a waiting list, because of course there is: whatever changes – prosperity, ideology – German bureaucracy stays the same.

In fact, it's nearly a year before his letter eventually comes, in a crisp white envelope with an acronym printed beneath the national crest, that he doesn't recognise. It's not until he opens it up and sees the name of the Agency printed in full on the letterhead that he understands what he's even looking at.

He should just throw it away, he decides. This is the last thing he needs right now, he’s going half-crazy as it is: he’s expecting to hear from the Institute regarding their immunology research post any day now, and if that wasn’t enough, he’s rapidly falling in love – with a man who’s positive, and Alex knows better than almost anyone exactly what that will mean.

He’s drinking too much coffee and hardly sleeping or eating, every waking moment feels like he’s in freefall – and when he reads that personal files concerning him have been located and he can make an appointment at the BStU central office in Berlin-Lichtenberg to view them, he laughs, just a little hysterically.

He’s going to throw it away, he decides, forget all about it again, just as soon as he can be bothered to get up.

But then he thinks of Moritz, of the woman with the inscrutable smile, and hesitates.

It's only when he hears Bastian’s key in the lock that he realises the sky has darkened outside and he’s still sitting there at the kitchen table, one palm flat against the paper.

The sudden overhead lights make him wince, and Bastian’s lips are cold against his temple. “Oh my God, did you get it?”

It takes Alex a moment to realise what he must be referring to, which given the last few weeks is really ridiculous. “No – I mean it’s not that. Something else.”

Bastian sits down heavily in the chair beside Alex, rubbing at his forehead – not one of his better days, then, but also not one of his worst, given that he’s come over at all. He squints at the letterhead. “ _Der Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik._ What the hell?”

Alex doesn’t think he could ever get tired of the way Bastian’s nose crinkles when he’s confused.

He takes Bastian’s hand between both of his where it’s reaching out, massaging his icy fingers, and says, “Have you thrown up today?”

“Yeah. Twice.”

“Dizziness? Muscle aches?”

“Just when I woke up. It's not so bad.”

Alex sighs. “You shouldn’t take it if it makes you worse.”

“It’s worth it if it means more time.” Bastian’s jaw is set, with a stubbornness Alex knows all too well. “Dr Thiel said we’d reassess at the end of the month.”

“Dr Thiel doesn't see you like this every day.”

“He’s still the best immunologist in Germany. You told me so yourself. Anyway. I’m okay.” Bastian wraps his other hand around Alex’s, and nods towards the letter. “So what is this?”

“The Gauck office. I applied to view my Stasi file.”

Bastian snorts. “ _You_ have a Stasi file?”

In both love and war, there are moments when you feel the balance shift; when for good or ill, you know you have to commit.

It’s got harder as he’s got older, now that he knows what he has to lose.

He takes a breath, and says, “I haven’t told you yet, about my father.”

He tells Bastian everything, from beginning to end: not just the facts of the matter, but who he was back then – how angry, how rudderless, how desperate for affection. The stupid, _stupid_ things he did just so he could _matter,_ and just how close to disaster it brought him.

“I came to Berlin because I couldn’t stay there. Not after all that.” His grip on Bastian’s hands is too tight, and he forces himself to loosen it. “When I started at the hospice, it was penance, sort of. I’d fucked up my own life, I could at least help other people.” He shrugs. “It became a purpose in itself.”

Bastian drops his head to their joined hands for a few moments; and when he raises it again his eyes are wide, and just as startlingly blue as the night they met.

“I think I’m falling in love with you.”

Alex laughs, but it turns into a sob, and then another, and he buries his face in Bastian’s shoulder for a few moments, strong hands against his shoulders holding him steady, holding him fast.

“And I with you.” He threads his fingers into Bastian’s curls, smiling through his tears. “I was going to throw it away.”

“But have you truly made your peace with the past?” When Alex doesn't reply, Bastian continues: “If you want to know what really happened, then you should find out.”

 

* * *

 

The BStU office smells like old paper and cheap industrial cleaner, and the ‘reading room’ where they bring him his file is more like a closet, just a single desk and chair, and a pair of net curtains tempering the daylight. One of the fluorescent lights overhead is flickering, and Frau Hartmann has barely closed the door behind her when he vaults onto the table and wrenches it from its fitting.

_Come on. Get a grip._

He stands the fluorescent tube against the wall, feeling vaguely silly, and sits down at the desk, preparing to face off with his file.

It’s just paper. A single slim, beige cardboard file, prominently headed with the black numeral I. His name, handwritten, and a patchwork of codes and references, BtSU as well as Stasi, that he doesn't bother trying to make sense of.

He's holding his breath when he opens the cover.

The first page is just basics. His name, date and place of birth. Bundeswehr rank and service history, the photograph from his personnel file. Father, of course, mother and sister. The school he went to. Not things that would be too hard to find out.

The next page is dense with text, and due to the light he has to squint a little to make out the date at the top – 1981, he notes with surprise, well before Moritz. It’s a profile of his father: his rank and service history, his role representing the Bundeswehr in NATO defence policy. The Double-Track Decision,3 the breakdown of the 1981 disarmament negotiations and the threat of imminent US rearmament on West German soil. It’s dry stuff, that Alex knew anyway and doesn’t care too much to be reminded of, so he scans a couple of paragraphs – until he’s brought up short by the subheading ‘Personal Life’.

He sucks in a breath – but in the end, it’s nothing astonishing. After all, the cracks in the Edel family were still fine enough at that point to be undetectable to an outsider: Yvonne was still at school; Mama, as so often, barely mentioned. Alex himself was well out of his father’s shadow in Hamburg, only just starting to wrestle privately with his many demons – desperately in lust with fellow Lieutenant Dominik Schröder, and desperately unsure whether he could ever be the man his father had always so clearly expected.

The report is signed ‘Zwecke’,4 which seems like a seriously weird code name; it could have been anyone in his father’s orbit, he decides, none of the information was particularly privileged, and there’s nothing of insight about his family either. There’s a clumsy attempt to psychologically profile his father, but it’s short, and says no more than what anyone speaking to him for five minutes could have surmised.

He turns the page.

April ‘83 – and okay, who the _fuck_ , because this report is about _him_ and he knows Moritz didn’t arrive at Daun until the summer.

His mouth is dry, but he wasn’t allowed to bring anything in and he doesn’t want to go and get a glass of water because it would mean taking his eyes off it, like prey in the eyes of a predator.

April ‘83. He remembers reading about the Easter demonstrations in the newspaper and wondering if he wasn’t in fact fighting on the wrong side: militarism had led Germany to two ruinous world wars, crimes against humanity on a massive scale and half of her being split off into a Soviet puppet state; and then, with America and the Soviet Union staring each other down upon her soil, fingers hovering over their respective buttons, how could more missiles ever be the right answer?

And it’s all here, set out in clunky, impersonal prose by an unknown spy: how he’d started to get angry, chafing against the discipline that was both the Army and his father, the slow erosion of his belief in West German defense policy, his outbursts and the resulting discipline – and not just what was said but the titles of the books in his locker, even what looks like a photocopy of an article about the demonstrations, that he must have cut out of the newspaper. That he mostly read and kept to himself, frequently quarrelling with anyone who tried to engage him. That he had no particular friends.

He looks up and around the room, as if there’s anything in this bare space that can anchor him. He feels – _violated,_ is the only word for it, and maybe he should have seen this coming but he’s never been that good at consequences, has he?

‘Träger’5 seemed to know everything he said, every possession he had; but at least he didn’t know Alex’s private thoughts, his feelings, that he’d never dared have breathe a word of to anyone in the Army: that by then he was pretty damned sure there was no chance of him ever falling for a woman, or being satisfied with the clandestine, a quick fumble in the dark – if he could even find someone who was willing to have a quick fumble with him. That he yearned to fall in love. That he felt utterly alone, and if war did break out he’d have been more scared of dying a virgin than of dying at all.

And there at the bottom of Träger’s report is the phrase, even more passive and convoluted than the rest of the text:  

> OLt. Edel’s behaviour should be carefully monitored over the coming months in order to identify any sympathies to the socialist cause which may indicate receptiveness to potential collaboration.

_Collaboration._

Alex laughs. There’s no humour in it.

He gets up and tells Frau Hartmann he’s going to the toilet, where he sticks his head under the faucet and drinks deeply. The water tastes oddly metallic – lead pipes, probably, and when he looks in the mirror, there’s something in his eyes he doesn’t think he’s seen there since Tobias died.

And to think he offered to _work_ for these people.

He stubbornly raises his chin and goes back to the room.

Another two reports by Träger follow, in much the same vein as the first: things he’d apparently said when his frustrations boiled over, who he said them to, and the resulting consequences. It’s impossible to tell how accurate they are; he has no memory of the events, and was never really careful what he said or to whom. Even if Träger wasn’t there in person every time, it’s fair to assume that people talked.

But what really smarts comes at the end of the third report: 

> OLt. Edel’s anti-establishment views are currently crude and underdeveloped and appear to be more the result of a desire to rebel against his father Gen. Edel than a genuine commitment to the so-called „peace movement”. It is not thought that he believes in socialist ideals. Kolibri will be placed close to him in order to assess further but no approach is recommended at this time.

_Kolibri will be placed close to him._

The words send a chill down Alex’s spine.

There’s no doubt at all in his mind what that means.

But who the fuck was Träger, to have that authority?

Then it comes to him: When he took General Jackson hostage and Moritz came to get him out, he brought Kramer.

Part of him wants to insist it isn’t possible, that there couldn’t have been _two_ of them in his father’s inner circle – but who else could it have been? Kramer was their immediate superior, and Alex can just see him now, suggesting quietly to his father that the new aide should bunk with his unruly son, to provide a steadying influence.

He thinks he’d asked Moritz, after, how he knew to find him. Or perhaps he was too shaken to think of it. In any case, he can’t remember what Moritz answered. He had probably assumed that Moritz and Kramer were charged with looking for him together and just happened to get lucky.

If the Stasi were already watching him, suddenly it makes a lot more sense.

One thing’s for certain: he will never tell his father. Moritz’s betrayal shattered his heart as Alex himself shattered his spine; another betrayal would be intolerable. Better to let it rest.

He’s maybe a quarter of the way through his file; he hasn’t even got to Moritz’s reports on him yet. He isn’t sure he wants to know any more.

He turns over the page like ripping off a plaster.

At least half of the first report from Kolibri is heavily blacked-out, and with no idea of who it relates to, Alex doesn’t have the patience to try and make sense of it. He scans through long sections on the layout, structure and schedules of the base, still mostly recognisable to him even a decade on.

Half way down the third side, his own name jumps out at him: 

> Oberleutnant Edel is openly pro-détente. He is reading a book by Petra Kelly and immediately challenged me on my view of rearmament. He is frequently borderline insubordinate which appears to be tolerated due to his relationship to General Edel. I agree with Träger that any attempts to recruit him to our cause could backfire and so jeopardise the purpose of our mission.

The irony is that Alex almost certainly _would_ have turned, if Moritz had only asked.

He turns a page, then another – and freezes when he realises what the next report is about.

There had always been rumours of GDR spies in the peace movement. He’d never cared – who _wouldn’t_ want peace and disarmament, on whichever side of the Wall? But to see that they’d noticed _him_ in particular – 

> Alexander Edel attended the meeting for the first time. He was openly critical of the peace movement’s methods, believing it would have no effect on politicians and senior Army figures, and was clearly frustrated by the group’s lack of radical action. Suggested privately that the GDR Diplomatic Mission may be a better fit with his beliefs and he appeared to give it serious consideration.
> 
> Suspect he may be a homosexual. Will maintain contact. Am hopeful that he may come to be of great value to the cause.
> 
> Waage

Alex stares at the page, mouth hanging open, as if it could reveal itself to be an elaborate practical joke at any moment.

He can barely believe it, but he is utterly unable to deny it all the same.

There is simply no-one else it could be.

‘Waage’ is _Tobias._

Tobias was Stasi.

_Tobias._

_“Fuck!”_ he breathes aloud, rocking back in his chair and staring up at the ceiling tiles as tears prick the corners of his eyes, feeling physically sick.

Tobias was the first man he ever kissed. The first to take him to bed. And the first to drop him just as unequivocally, with a bluntness that he only realised later is certainly not how you should treat a partner you respect. He’d forced himself to rationalise it any number of ways – he was too young, Tobias had Felix, Tobias had only ever wanted sex and he’d misunderstood – but _this_ –

Here it is, in the man’s own words, explicit and indisputable:

Tobias seduced him because he was General Edel’s son.

Because Tobias was a Stasi spy, and he thought he could turn Alex as well.

_I would have done it, and he knew it._

_So why did he cut me out?_

He reads on, in growing shock and anger. At first it seems that every moment they shared is here in print: all the meetings, the clashes between him and the other attendees, particularly one person whose name is blacked out, he assumes Felix. Tobias’ observations that he’s ‘angry and emotional’ – which smarts to read, even though he’d never made any secret of his opinions at the time. In his second report he gives Alex the code name Zunder,6 which is painfully apt.

The first omission is their cinema trip, although Alex knows that a lot of Stasi records have been lost or destroyed. But still. He hopes that that at least was withheld from the eyes of the Commie bureaucrats. 

> Established sexual relationship with Zunder. However he stormed out when I disagreed that he should leave the Army. He remains emotionally volatile, and rejects any suggestion that he could work within the system to effect change. Doubt his usefulness to our cause.  

Tobias had never pretended that theirs was some grand romance. But to be cast aside when you’re _no longer useful_ –

The next report is authored by ‘Kleopatra’, the woman from the Diplomatic Mission.

> Zunder presented himself at the front desk and offered his services to the GDR. As described by Comrade Waage he is emotional in the extreme. He suggested the following actions to prevent deployment of the Pershing-II missiles [...] It is obvious that these ideas are completely unworkable and any collaboration with Zunder would be detrimental both to Kolibri’s mission and our wider struggle against US/NATO imperialism. In any case he will have been identified by the BND7 on entering the building and as such is compromised. No further collaboration will be attempted.

Alex scrubs furiously at his eyes with his sleeve when the letters start to blur, determined to finish this.

He skims the remaining pages: detailed reports from Kolibri and Waage on his kidnapping of General Jackson; Waage’s report on the protests at the base, when Alex laid down his megaphone and joined them on the picket line.

> Zunder requested to continue our relationship, which I declined. He appeared to accept this. As he has not attended any group meetings since our last sexual encounter I do not expect him to maintain contact.

There’s no mention of the fact that Tobias told him to get tested for AIDS, and Alex is slightly disgusted with himself for how _grateful_ he is, grateful for every scrap of privacy he’s been allowed. As if anything about their relationship was _real._

The last report in the file is again from Waage – dated 1986. It appears to be about his anti-Apartheid activities in West Berlin, which Alex barely knows or cares about right now; and it’s mostly blacked out except for the last paragraph, which is tacked on like an afterthought –  

> Met Zunder by chance during protest regarding US aggression against Libya. He now volunteers at Regenbogen AIDS Hospice in Südstern. He remains of no interest.

_Of no interest._

There’s nothing else.

Alex slams the file shut, and covers his mouth with his hand.

 

* * *

 

He barely notices how he gets to Bastian’s, only that he manages it. It’s empty, his housemates thankfully absent, so Alex makes a cup of tea and sits at the kitchen table with the lights off, not drinking it, just watching the steam curl upwards, illuminated by the yellow sodium streetlights.

One of the most important friendships of his life, and it was built on a lie.

His tea’s stone cold by the time he finally hears footsteps on the stairs, a key turning in the lock.

He winces as the lights turn on.

“Oh, _darling_.” Bastian’s voice is so sympathetic as he sits down beside him and puts a hand on his shoulder; Alex has no notion of how he must look. “Oh no. What happened? Please, tell me.”

“I –” The idea of saying it out loud makes his throat close up. “I made copies. Would you read it, please?”

He pulls the stack of papers from his bag, flicking through until he reaches Waage’s first report, and drops it on the table like it’s burning him. “There.”

There are a few moments of silence, and then, “ _Oh_ ,” Bastian’s voice little more than a breath. “Did – did _Tobias_ write this? Alex?”

Alex nods silently, fresh tears rolling off the end of his nose and dripping onto the table.

“Oh, my darling.” Bastian pulls him in for a hug, and Alex clings to him like he’s drowning, letting go of his last remaining threads of self-control and letting the tears flow, as Bastian strokes his hair and holds him tight. “I’m so sorry. I swear, if he wasn’t dead already I’d kill him myself.”

Alex snorts, and then immediately chokes on his own snot, but Bastian just holds him tighter. “I’m still reading,” he murmurs, and Alex stays where he is with his face buried in Bastian’s neck as he hears the pages turn, ignoring the fact that it’s making his back ache, grateful he doesn’t have to look at him or say anything just yet.

Eventually the rustling of paper stops and Bastian sighs, his hand rubbing slow circles between Alex’s shoulder blades. “So Kolibri is the mole from your Army base. Waage is – Tobias. Who’s Träger?”

“ _Oberstleutnant_ Kramer. My immediate superior. My father trusted him, I – I think my father was the only one on that base who _wasn’t_ a traitor.”

“Oh darling. You weren’t a traitor. You made some bad decisions and they took advantage of you.” Bastian kisses the top of his head. “There’s nothing else?”

“No.” Alex makes himself get up, grabs a piece of kitchen roll and blows his nose loudly, turns the radio on low. “There could have been other reports that were lost, but he – I think that was the last one. I wasn’t _useful_ after that.”

“He treated you terribly.” Bastian sighs. “And I would never try and excuse him, but – the way he wrote that last report? I wonder if actually, that was him trying to protect you.”

As Alex stares in disbelief, Bastian raises his hands hastily, as if in surrender. “Hear me out. I want to make sure I’m understanding this correctly. You met each other when you were in the Army, he fucked you and then he dumped you. And then he told you you might have AIDS, right? Okay. And then you don’t see him again until you meet in Berlin a few years later. He gets involved with AIDS-Hilfe and you become friends. Right?”

Alex nods mutely. He’s gripping the kitchen counter so tightly it hurts.

“So here’s what I’m thinking. He found out he had HIV. We both know what it is to face your own mortality like that. And he must have known as well what a shitshow his country had become. Imagine looking at your life and realising everything about it is fake, and in service of a meaningless cause. I’m not saying you should forgive him, but maybe the friendship was him trying to atone. Or maybe now that he didn’t need anything from you, he was trying to build something real.”

Alex looks up at the mouldy patch on the ceiling, sucking in a breath as he tries to wrap his head around everything Bastian’s saying.

 _Could_ it have been real, for Tobias?

Can it be real for _him,_ now he knows?

“The Ancient Egyptians believed that when you died, the gods would weigh your heart. For you to enter heaven, it had to be lighter than a feather.” He doesn’t really know why he’s saying this, and even though Bastian’s only a few metres away he feels the distance between them more acutely than ever. “Unlike the Catholics, they understood that some sins are so grave as to be unforgivable.” He laughs harshly, and throws up his hands. “I loved him! We stood side by side and fought against AIDS until he couldn’t stand any more, and then I was the one who nursed him. I wiped his arse and mopped up his vomit and held him in the middle of the night when he woke up screaming. He talked all kinds of shit, these meaningless words, and I thought none of it meant anything.

“I was there at the end, I was the one who gave him his last dose of morphine and watched as he died. I couldn’t speak at his funeral because I couldn’t stop crying long enough to get the words out. He was my _friend_ and all the time he’d done this to me!”

He realises he’s shouting, and forces himself to stop, take a juddering breath. Across the room, Bastian’s face is stricken.

“I’m so sorry, my love. So sorry.”

Alex turns away for a moment, leaning against the counter, chest heaving. The radio is playing _No Son of Mine,_ and he feels utterly exhausted all of a sudden.

“I want so badly for it to have been real. Even after what he did to me. Isn’t that awful? I’m grateful to him for every little thing he withheld from them, even if it was selfish. I don’t think he wanted them to know he was positive. _‘There is no AIDS in the GDR.’_ Ridiculous.”

“Can you find out anything else about him? Maybe try and view his file?”

“It wouldn’t be allowed. Close relatives only.” Alex blows his nose again and pours himself a glass of water, mainly for something to do. “But – there’s one person who might be able to help. Kolibri. I got his real name.”

“Would you want to see him?”

“If it wasn’t for this? No. But – perhaps if I understood more. I don’t know.” Alex walks over and sits back down at the table, bumping their shoulders gently together until Bastien obligingly wraps an arm around him. “I don’t give a fuck about Moritz – Kolibri – any more. But who knows, maybe he could tell me that Tobias hated the Stasi and that everything he did was under duress. That he _liked_ me, and didn’t just think I was a hot-headed little idiot who didn’t understand how the world worked.”

“What do you think was the truth?”

“Probably somewhere in the middle. As ever. He was – there was something cold at his centre. Tobias’. Always ruthlessly practical, but sometimes – just ruthless. I guess now I know why.” Alex sighs. “Always working, until his body gave out on him. He was a member of the Bundestag and a professor of law. And then there was the anti-apartheid and AIDS activism, peace movement, environmentalism, you name it. Anything anti-capitalist or anti-American, though he never would have put it that bluntly.” He pauses for a swig of water, runs a hand through his hair. “After we met again he got involved in my causes and I in his. We were comrades,8 and we fought together.”

Bastian’s thumb is running over Alex’s knuckles. “I don’t think he did that for the Stasi. It wouldn’t have served their purposes. I think he did that for you.”

And when Bastian says it, he believes it.

“Move in with me,” Alex blurts out, in a rush of love and gratitude. “I love you and I want to wake up beside you every morning for as long as we can.”

“Oh, darling. I want that too.” Bastian leans in, resting their foreheads together. “But I want you to ask me again when you’re not grieving. I won’t go anywhere.” He kisses him once, deep and full of feeling. “I don’t need to tell you that you’ll have to watch me die.”

“I’m terrified,” Alex confesses. “But you’re worth it, ten times over.”

Bastian smiles, and it’s so beautiful Alex’s chest aches. “I promise you, love. This is real.”

 

* * *

 

When Alex eventually gets back to his own flat around lunchtime the following day, his letter of acceptance is waiting for him.

 _It's happening,_ he thinks stupidly, then collapses on his bed and sleeps the rest of the day.

 

* * *

 

Moritz’s – Kolibri’s – real name is Martin Rauch, and he lives in Kleinmachnow, where Alex has never had any occasion to go.

He has to get the S-Bahn and then the bus, and it takes nearly an hour; but it turns out to be a very superficially pretty suburb, all large houses and cobbled, leafy streets, and not a typical Ossi apartment block in sight.

He decides it’s even more disturbing to think of somewhere this attractive, this familiarly _German_ -looking as having been totalitarian.

He gets lost a few times before eventually finding the right house, and ringing the doorbell – but then wonders if he is lost after all when a black teenager opens the door.

“Martin Rauch?” he tries, and is even more confused when the boy replies, “Yes, just a moment please,” in good German, but with an accent that’s distinctly African. “Martin!”

The man who steps into the entrance hall is ten years older but still unmistakably Moritz, and as soon as he sees Alex he stops, and goes as still as a statue.

Alex hadn’t let himself imagine what it would be like to see him again. He didn’t want to, in case his bravado failed him. But now that Moritz is standing before him in the flesh, he finds he isn’t feeling anything at all.

“Hello, _Martin,_ ” Alex says, with a glance at the boy. “Long time no see. Shall we take a walk?”

Kleinmachnow seems to be nothing but houses like Moritz’s, on streets like Moritz’s, and he doesn’t know if Moritz is leading him anywhere in particular. He’s walking with the determination of one who just wants to get this over with, and so Alex dawdles a little, just enough to be annoying.

When a full minute has passed without Moritz saying a single word, he asks, “So who’s the boy?”

“His name’s Rodolfo. After I – left the base and came back here, they sent me to an orphanage in Angola, to teach German. I adopted him.”

Alex blinks. “Angola? Why the hell...?”

“I was benched.” The look Moritz gives him makes him acutely aware how out of his depth he is in this conversation. “Every intelligence service in the Western world was after me and I’d deliberately blown my own mission. It was punishment.” His expression turns abruptly blank again. “So what brings you here?”

“I read my Stasi file.” Moritz nods, apparently unsurprised. “I want to ask about Tobias. Tischbier.”

“Ah.” Moritz gestures towards a small park across the road, deserted, with a couple of benches. “Let’s sit down.”

Alex isn’t sure if Moritz picks the middle bench in order to have the best vantage point, or if he’s just being paranoid.

“So.” Moritz crosses his arms, looking out towards the road. “Tischbier. What do you want to know?”

“He was Stasi.”

“HVA, yes.”

“I want to know everything.” Moritz glances at him, though Alex can’t read his expression. “We were friends, later, in Berlin, and I want to understand. And you’re the only one I can ask.”

Moritz is silent as his eyes track an old couple walking along the pavement in front of them, though Alex can’t decide if he’s truly cautious or just stalling for time.

“Okay,” he says at length. “Tischbier was my handler. When they first took me to the West, I lived in his house for a month while he taught me the tools of the trade. Micro cameras, lock picking, brush passes, all that shit. I ate a lot of fast food. Neither of us knew how to cook.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.” Alex smiles for a moment at the memory of Tobias’ ‘cooking’ before he realises how much it hurts. “What did you learn about him?”

“Not much. We didn't exactly share information. He’d been in the West since 1961.  I don’t know how long he’d been active. I think he was from Magdeburg, but I can’t remember for sure. No family. He’d never been back to the GDR, in all that time.” Moritz shakes his head. “And I doubt he wanted to. If he’d seen for himself just what a shithole it had become, I don’t think he’d have been able to do what he did.”

“Did he ever express any doubts to you? About the GDR, or the work you were doing?”

“No. He was far too good a comrade.” Irony tinges Moritz’s tone. “Iron self-discipline, like all his generation. But more than that, I don’t think he’d ever have let himself lose faith. Otherwise, what would it all have been for?”

Alex nods, Bastian’s words coming back to him: _Imagine looking at your life, and realising everything about it is fake._

“Did you lose faith?”

Moritz laughs, humourlessly. “I never believed.”

Well, what can you say to that?

They're both silent. Alex tries not to fidget; Moritz, it seems, suffers from no such imperialist impulses.

“Do you know what happened? With us?”

“I know you knew each other, from those meetings. You had his business card in one of your books.” He shrugs, as if to say, _Sorry I looked through your stuff, except not really._ “And you were General Edel’s son. Of course he was going to approach you.”

“He seduced me.”

It comes out accusatory, even though Moritz is hardly the one at fault.

“Oh. I didn’t know that. Though – I wondered. When he came to the base, with the protesters... you had this look. And then afterwards as well. And they’d told me you’d been compromised and that I was under no circumstances to take you into my confidence. So.” He shrugs.

“I wanted to leave the Army. He wanted me to stay. For reasons that are now obvious.” Alex shoves his hands into his pockets and doesn’t say, _And then he dropped me, for reasons that are also obvious._ “Did you know we became friends again, later?”

“Not as such. I saw you together a few times. I mean on TV, in the newspapers. The AIDS stuff. I asked him a few times how you were, but he always dodged the question.” Moritz hesitates. “If you don’t mind me – are you –”

Alex shakes his head. “Negative. He wasn’t so lucky.”

“Mmm. The HVA were _not_ happy when he announced it live on television. But they couldn’t do anything. He’d made himself too high-profile. That was probably what kept him safe.” Moritz frowns. “You said you found out from your file. I’m surprised he hasn’t been unmasked in the press yet.”

“Maybe there’s not enough information to confirm it. What was in my file was very – personal, to me. I didn’t ask if they knew his real name, because I didn’t need to. But all it would tell an outsider is that there were Stasi spies in the West German peace movement. And that wasn’t news even then.”

“Are you going to tell them?”

Alex’s gut reaction is indignation – it’s with difficulty that he pushes it down. He supposes it’s not actually an unreasonable question; Tobias _is_ guilty, likely of much more than he knows. “No. I’m not. We _were_ friends. Truly. After we met in Berlin, he didn’t report on me again. And I can’t imagine the GDR instructed him to become an AIDS activist.”

“Almost certainly not,” Moritz agrees. “But I’m surprised you still call him a friend.”

Alex hesitates, but – fuck it, this is his only chance at this conversation; and for all Moritz has done, he knew Alex once, and doesn’t seem like he’s about to judge him.

“I don’t know. He betrayed me, utterly, and I’m fucking heartbroken. And I probably always will be. But that same heart is telling me he was a true friend to me as well.” Alex sighs. “Perhaps one doesn’t invalidate the other. It just makes it fucking hard to deal with.”

“I think you were his oasis.” There’s something in Moritz’s expression that Alex thinks might be envy. “People like us don’t have friends, and yet he managed it. And the AIDS activism, that wasn’t in service of the GDR. That’s something that was just for him, that he shared with you.”

“That’s what my boyfriend said,” Alex agrees – and Moritz blinks at him, like he’d somehow forgotten Alex is queer. “What? You thought I was going to settle down with a nice girl?”

Moritz smirks. “No, not really.”

For the first time, the silence between them is almost companionable.

“So, what happened to you? I assume you did leave the Army after I left.”

“Yes. I moved to West Berlin. It seemed like the thing to do.” Alex decides not to mention the part where he accidentally shot his father. “I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I started volunteering at an AIDS hospice. Then I became a medical student. I’ve just been offered a research post at the new Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology. I’m going to be working on combination therapies to treat HIV with the best immunologist in Germany.” He’s sure Moritz can hear the pride in his voice.

“And you’re in love,” Moritz says, mostly to himself. “Good.”

“And you?”

“Well, I’m unemployable, and I’m mostly waiting to see if I’ll be prosecuted for espionage against the country that swallowed my country and then spat its citizens out again.” Alex immediately regrets asking. “Not that I want my country back. It was a totalitarian shithole. But still, it seems a little unfair.

“But I have a son, and he loves me. And I have Rodolfo. And their lives will be their own, not controlled by the Party, or dependent on their loyalty to bankrupt ideals.”

Moritz is talking freely enough that Alex takes a chance on asking, “How did you become a spy?”

“By accident. My aunt was HVA, and my natural father. I was a border guard, in customs. That was fine, I just wanted to stay a border guard, maybe marry my girlfriend, have a quiet life. Instead I had the misfortune to look a little too much like the real Moritz Stamm.” Moritz pauses, waits as a jogger passes by. “They asked me to go and I said no. Even though my mother was sick and they dangled her treatment in front of me, I refused. So they drugged me, and I when woke up I was in Bonn.”

“Oh my God.”

Moritz looks at him like he's naïve – which, Alex supposes, he is. “These are the kinds of people we are, Alex. We kidnap, we lie, we cheat and we kill. We seduce.”

Moritz pauses, considering – and Alex knows instinctively that for him, this is a moment where the balance shifts –

– but then all he does is huff a breath, his expression closing off. “He was your friend. Better you should remember him that way.” He gets abruptly to his feet. “It's getting cold.”

 

* * *

 

Bastian's at work until late, and Alex doesn't want to go back to his own empty flat, doesn't want to be alone with this. He briefly considers going to a bar, but he's got too old now for the inevitable hangover to be worth it, and losing himself in music is no longer quite what it used to be.

Instead, even though it is indeed getting cold, he goes to the cemetery.

Tobias's grave marker is a square of dark granite embedded in the grass, the size of Alex's hand span. He's three along and two down from the other Walter with Peter and Jörg across the path, and Alex doesn't like to be a conspiracy theorist but he wouldn't be surprised if someone in the city government had decided to put all the queers in together.

Alex chose the gold lettering himself, and the inscription:

> _Tobias Tischbier_ _  
> _ _1940 - 1989_ _  
> _ _Friend and fighter_

He crouches down in the grass, pressing his fingers briefly to the icy stone as he always does; but anger and grief is a knot in his chest, and this is not like the other times at all.

This time, he truly doesn't know how to begin.

“I'd love to know what you expected.”

Alex’s voice cuts through the evening’s quiet, but it doesn’t make him doubt. It makes him want to go on, because surely it’s better to talk to a dead man than to keep it all inside, where it will only rot.

No, he knows himself well enough to know he’s not into leaving things unsaid.

“I’d love to know if you thought the GDR would last another fifty years, or if you knew enough that you could see the end was coming. If you thought that one day the Wall would fall and the files would open up, and I would find out who you really were.”

He gets to his feet, stamping them a couple of times for warmth, wiping his nose with his sleeve as he blinks back the inevitable tears.

“What you did to me was fucking awful. I know you knew that but I want to say it to you. You used me and discarded me when you couldn’t use me any more. Did you feel guilty? Later, I mean, cause you sure as shit didn't at the time. Is that what motivated you to find me again? Don't expect me to believe it was a coincidence. You were far too good for that.

“Cause I want to believe that you actually liked –” Alex's voice cracks, and he takes a heaving breath – “you liked me. That maybe you were proud of how I'd grown up. I'm still not as old now as you were when we met, but I'm old enough to understand how young I was back then.

“I don't know if I can understand you now. I don't understand Moritz. Martin. You know. I don't know if we Wessis and Ossis will ever understand each other.

“But you gave me something real. The same you who treated me like utter shit the first time around. I wish I was as good at compartmentalising as you were. Maybe then I wouldn’t be cracking up like this.

“I'm glad I don't believe in God. Eternal suffering or total absolution, it's too simple. I'm glad I don't have to sit in judgement. I don't want that responsibility.

“I know it was worse than I know, _you_ were worse than I know. I hope you suffered according to the weight of your conscience. No more and no less. And I wish I could have –

“I wish I could have saved you.”

He's shaking, he realises, his teeth chattering, his wet cheeks stinging from the wind.

“Are you wondering when I got so wise? Well, you had a hand in that. And I've got Bastian now. You'd like him. He always tells me what he thinks, even when I don't want to hear it. Like you did.

“I got into the Institute. Cutting edge research on combination therapies for HIV/AIDS. Bastian's positive, but maybe – maybe I won't have to watch him die like you. Maybe I'll be able to save him. Maybe I'll save all of them. And if not, then it was worth the fight. All of it.

“Can you say that, Tobias? Was your fight worth it?”

Even as Alex asks the question, he realises that there will never be an answer.

He’s fucking freezing out here, and it's getting dark.

He squats down again, and traces a finger over the inscription.

 _Friend and fighter,_ he thinks, and suddenly wants nothing more than to get as far away as possible.

He hesitates – then holds two fingers to his lips, and presses them against the stone.

“I need some time,” he mumbles as he stands, raising his head and squaring his shoulders, then walking away, his back to the setting sun.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Footnotes**  
>  1 Citizens of West Berlin were exempt from compulsory military service ("the draft"). ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Germany#Conscientious_objection_in_the_past))  
> 2 [The Rise and Fall of AZT](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/the-rise-and-fall-of-azt-it-was-the-drug-that-had-to-work-it-brought-hope-to-people-with-hiv-and-2320491.html): _The Independent_ , 2 May 1993.  
> 3 [NATO Double-Track Decision](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Double-Track_Decision)  
> 4 Zwecke (f.): nail, tack  
> 5 Träger (m.): carrier  
> 6 Zunder (m.): tinder  
> 7 The West German federal intelligence service ( _Bundesnachtrichtendienst_ ).  
> 8 _Kameraden_ (also mates, brothers-in-arms), not _Genossen_ (fellow Communists).
> 
> **Soundtrack**  
> [Scorpions - Wind of Change](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4RjJKxsamQ)  
> [Inner Circle - Sweat (A La La Long)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc2UEfWjvo8)  
> [Genesis - No Son of Mine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cddQn1mZRfI)


End file.
